Chuck The Geek.com

Technology is so cool (Why I love gadgets)

January 25th, 2006 by Chuck Sharp

This is just a quick diversion for me, but these developments-in-progress just have to be shared. The products that are beginning to be created are really exciting - they are bringing to life some of the technology I used to dream about when reading sci-fi. These are simple developments, but profound.

The first to come to mind is the Optimus keyboard - this bad boy has little lcd displays (technically, OLEDs) in every key! That means that you can have your keyboard displayed in different alphabets, but even better, it can change the keys depending on what you’re doing. For instance, if you’re in photoshop (the website’s own example), your keyboard can display all the shortcut commands for that program. It can also show colors and animations, which has some interesting possibilities. Learning touch typing will never be the same, because learning-to-type software could light up each key when it’s time to press it. If you prefer a different key layout instead of QWERTY for any reason, just re-map the keyboard. Just a lot of fun possibilities here.

The next piece of technological coolness can be seen here. These little pen-like entities actually project a computer display onto a surface just like a projector, as well as create projected keyboards onto a desk surface. The keyboard part can actually sense where your fingers are on the projection and so act just like a regular keyboard.

The last cool product is actually out now. It is a 4 gigabyte secure digital card. That’s one of those little postage stamp sized cards that hold pictures in your digital camera or hold mp3’s in your pocketpc. Four, that’s 1,2,3,4 GIGA-bytes! That can hold over 4000 high quality digital pictures, and close to a thousand mp3 files. That’s like 60 straight hours of music.

This is cool because it shows the progress of small data storage. We’re approaching a time when we really can carry entire libraries, music collections, and a load of other information in our pockets. Imagine, for instance, backing up your entire PC onto a postage sized card. Or, having a palm/pocketpc-type device in your pocket that is not only a cell-phone but a full-featured computer (a real personal computer) that can do everything and more that your home computer does. Technology really is becoming personal. It’s going to change the way we interact with computers and each other, much the way the internet has already changed how we all interact. Now that’s exciting.

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